The table has been set at Christie’s, where the fabled dining room of philanthropist, designer, and publisher Ann Getty has been sumptuously re-created. Through October 25, the contents of her home, including 1,500 fine and decorative artworks and her exquisite tabletop collection, will be offered in a series of sales at the auction house to benefit the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts.
It’s a collection that is “reminiscent of the Gilded Age,” says Ricky Trabucco, who runs Home at Last, an interior-design business in New York City. “Tables groaning with countless silver utensils, piles of bone china, and clusters of crystal stemware lend themselves to a bygone era … When a table is laid so extravagantly, it seems the food would, if not ruin it, at least partially obscure its intended opulence. This is far more form than function. But a sale like this is never about need. It’s about owning a piece of the history of fabulousness.”
